Identifier: gamebirdsshootin00mill (find matches)
Title: Game birds and shooting-sketches : illustrating the habits, modes of capture, stages of plumage and the hybirds & varieties which occur amongst them
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Millais, John Guille, 1865-1931
Subjects: Grouse Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: London : H. Sotheran
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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d they become so weak and blind that they pay noattention to the warning call of the sentry should there stillbe one keeping watch. The spectator can then walk up tothem within a yard or two, when they will make off witha considerable amount of unsteadiness in proportion to thenature of wounds received. Numbers annually kill eachother in this manner, fighting till their heads are torn tosuch an extent as to l:)e almost unrecognisable. MIntosh,the Duchess of Atholes keeper at Dunkeld, tells me hepicks up two or three cocks every spring that have beenkilled in these fights; and James Keay, our keeper atJMurthlv, told me that on one occasion, when goino- hisrounds through the woods, he came upon tw^o old cockswho had so successfully mauled each other as to be lyingon the ground in a perfectly helpless state, focing eachother. About the end of A23ril the hens again seek theirformer breeding-jjlaces, and large numbers of them leavetheir winter-haunts in the hills for the low grounds, there
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HOME OF THE CAPERCAILLIE. CAPERCAILLIE 43 to look out for suitable spots for nesting, not returning tothe rocks and precipices till late the following autumn, inmany cases not at all, being so easily killed in the earlypart of the shooting-season. Having selected a favourablespot under a spruce-fir or withered stump,^ she proceedsto scrape out a fair-sized hollow, and lines it with a fewleaves and feathers to suit her taste, and therein deposits,at the end of May, from six to thirteen eggs. Whenincubation commences, she sits very closely, even allowingherself to be stroked by the hand without betraying anyuneasiness beyond a shake of her head and a hiss ofdisapprobation. In course of time the chicks make theirappearance, and very seedy-looking little chaps they are,requiring on the part of their mother the utmost careand attention during the first few perilous days ofexistence, which are so fatal to the large majority of them.No young Game Birds, except perhaps Blackgame, andeven thes

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